As the Sunday Sun revealed, the HUSAR team, offered by Mayor David Miller hours after the quake ravaged the tiny island nation on Tuesday, was ordered to get ready to deploy late that night before ultimately being told to stand down Friday.

The team is composed of police officers, firefighters, paramedics, doctors, public works staff, search and rescue dogs and heavy equipment - capable of going into areas where buildings have collapsed, trapping people.

All the other HUSAR teams across Canada have also been grounded as the crisis in Haiti unfolded and the window closed to find survivors within the ruins of Port-au-Prince.

A group member told the Sun that at least 20 of the 65-member taxpayer-funded team were already packed for an upcoming training exercise in Saskatchewan and could have been deployed early Wednesday for at least three days - the critical early days for finding survivors.

On Saturday, federal officials said the UN, in consultation with the Haitian government, had turned down the offer of the HUSAR teams.

During a briefing in Ottawa Sunday, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said the government had opted to send Canadian Forces instead.

"When you deploy Canadian armed forces, they can hit the ground and they are literally capable of sustaining themselves, not only through food necessity but they do have the equipment required to camp there, to set up there," he told reporters.